During the height of the Harry Potter franchise’s popularity, a plethora of video game adaptations were released. While some of the earlier titles possess a certain nostalgic charm, and a few Gameboy releases have stood the test of time, many were merely forgettable tie-ins to the eight-part film series. The Harry Potter and broader Wizarding World franchise has had a mixed track record since then, featuring outstanding experiences like the technically magnificent theatrical production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, but also a prequel film series with an uncertain future. In the realm of video games, the Portkey Games brand has produced mostly unremarkable offerings from a variety of developers. However, since the first whispers about Hogwarts Legacy surfaced in 2017, this game has been eagerly anticipated as a potential AAA gaming experience from Avalanche Software. After several delays, we can finally immerse ourselves in the late 1800s wizarding world and realize our childhood dreams of receiving an invitation to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Narrative
Although the film-to-video game adaptations of the past primarily catered to a younger audience, Hogwarts Legacy sets its sights on an older gaming demographic. The game not only explores the darker themes of the Harry Potter books but also delves into the lesser-known areas of the wizarding world. As a rare fifth-year admission to Hogwarts, you must master magic before taking your O.W.L.s at the end of the year. However, your journey to the renowned school takes an immediate turn when a dragon attack results in the death of your travelling companion. You and your professor are then portkeyed to a picturesque seaside location, with a hidden entrance to Gringotts Bank waiting for you to discover it. While the panning shots of Hogwarts have always been magical, the opening to Hogwarts Legacy subverts expectations and serves as both an immediate start to the game’s overarching narrative and a tutorial for the general game mechanics – as you unlock your first few spells and tackle basic puzzles.
On the note of the overarching story, by itself it is a bit lacklustre, involving you going on a quest to tackle four different challenges to progressively discover the secrets of ‘Ancient Magic’, your ability to wield it, and the current Goblin uprising. Yet, the most unforgettable moments of the main story arise between each of these trials, as new opportunities emerge, such as battling trolls in Hogsmeade or engaging in epic battles against a horde of enemies. However, the game’s true magic emerges from how every aspect builds upon an experience that is not only memorable but also captivating. Boasting approximately 150 quests, comprising unique one-off stories, three-character arcs that explore three different threats to the wizarding world (Poaching, Dark Arts, and Criminal Gangs), and classes to attend, I never found myself lacking in things to do during my 40-hour playthrough. The only disappointment was the way Ravenclaw was marginalized, with a forgettable sub-companion that has a single mission and no further impact on the game’s main story – despite being voiced by Luke Youngblood, who was promoted as the only returning actor from the film franchise. Despite each mission following the typical challenges found in any open-world RPG, the game’s unique storylines and sufficient challenges made each quest worth undertaking.
Immersion in the Hogwarts Experience begins following the tutorial mission, where you are sorted into your Hogwarts House, attend a few classes, undertake challenges set by your fellow students and teachers, and eventually unlock your wand. Although you can import your House and wand from the Wizarding World website, with a few minor perks in doing so, your decisions do not dramatically impact your experience. Your chosen Hogwarts House only grants access to an exclusive common room area, while the power of your wand remains unchanged, regardless of the core, wood or flexibility you choose from many, many opinions. Nonetheless, exploring the vast Hogwarts Castle is incredibly fulfilling, and the surprisingly large open world you can explore at will, although not entirely book-friendly, is certainly fun – littered with a range of different wizarding towns to visit. Setting Hogwarts Legacy in the past also sets it free from any shackles imposed by previous works – the Professors, students and even lore had a lot more flexibility for the writing team, and they made use of it to deliver a captivating experience.
While I sing many praises, it should be said that I feel they could have done more to present a more bountiful storyline to meet the expectation of fans who have been waiting since the first rumours, if not much longer, for a ‘Harry Potter’ game of this scale. Regardless of which house you start out in, you wake up in your dormitory bedroom and head up (or down) to the main living quarters where you are required to meet three of your fellow house members – it would have been great that even if each house had one ‘companion’ that is pivotal to the story, having those other house members more involved in the story outside of a separate minor quest would have added more to the world building. Alternatively, having the other two House members elevated to house-exclusive companions would have justified replaying the game as a different student in a different House – which I would have been more than willing to do. While the level of detail put into the open-world environment is exceptional, it is typically traversed via broomstick. Even some randomly generated quests to justify travelling by foot might have been more rewarding, and justify the clear amount of development time mapping out pathways and unique spots not directly linked with a town or village.
Audiovisual Quality
Currently available on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, Hogwarts Legacy comes with five different performance modes, ranging from the higher tier Fidelity and Fidelity with Ray Tracing, to HFR performance with favours frame rates over everything else. There were only a few moments during my play session when the frame rate dipped to anything noticeable, and would personally recommend Fidelity (without Ray Tracing) or Performance depending on whether you prefer a slight boost in visual quality or 60fps gameplay. Raytracing from my perspective felt a bit too…. uncanny…. and didn’t feel as well implemented as other games. Perhaps considering they have also been developed for last-generation platforms, including the Nintendo Switch, Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t feature the visual quality that other AAA games exclusive to new-gen consoles have. But in return, it is brimming with charm.
Hogwarts Castle and Hogsmeade, two iconic locations from the books, are meticulously crafted in the game, full of easter eggs to discover. Exploring Hogwarts Castle is a highlight. Could it have been three or four times the size, certainly, I would have loved to see it. Nevertheless, the creative team struck an effective balance between exploration and gameplay utility. The only qualm I cannot overlook is the vast difference in consistency between common rooms. Slytherin House is the only one that seemed to have enough bedrooms for all its students, while Ravenclaw Tower was the only one with a bathroom for all its residents, although assumingly first through third years sleep… somewhere else? The game features a range of era-appropriate outfits, robes, and accessories that blend well with the aesthetic of the game. While some outfits were included in the Digital Deluxe Edition, Dark Arts Pack, and Collector’s Edition, the built-in offerings are the best and most authentic. Since most NPCs do not dress up, I found myself sticking to Ravenclaw school robes for the majority of the game.
Although not fully departing from the leitmotifs found in the music of the Harry Potter franchise, Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t use it as a crutch, featuring a nicely sized soundtrack, many songs of which can be enjoyed at your leisure on select streaming platforms. While some moments are a bit too quiet for what was taking place, for the most part, the music complements the intensity or mood of the scene in front of the player. Furthermore, those extra flourishes, such as each common room having a different theme tailored to its environment, were also welcome.
The voice acting in Hogwarts Legacy is consistently impressive, with the students sounding like authentic young students, the teaching staff possessing unique personalities and mannerisms, and other significant characters exhibiting distinctive traits that set them apart from one another. Amelia Gething and Sebastian Croft deliver excellent performances as the female and male player characters, respectively, staying neutral in tone to reflect the character’s potential personalities. However, I would argue that Croft’s voice sounds a bit too similar to Daniel Radcliffe’s portrayal of Harry Potter in the film. Not a deal breaker, but cannot get that thought out of my head. The cast is also highly diverse, featuring characters (and, in turn, voice actors) from different nationalities, cultures and orientations. The standout performance comes from Rebecca Root, who delivers an incredible performance as the transgender Sirona Ryan, owner of The Three Broomsticks.
Gameplay
Hogwarts Legacy offers more gameplay than the latter Harry Potter tie-in games, which primarily focused on castle navigation collect-a-thons or a limited number of average instanced missions. The game’s transition to a fully open-world environment that spans both within and outside the confines of the Hogwarts Grounds is impressive. Although there are numerous trinkets to collect, they are not just rewards for button-mashing. Instead, the game rewards exploration and experimentation with different magical spells to unlock many well-hidden items and solve moderately difficult puzzles. Unlike many open-world games that rely on a wide range of physical weapons to fight foes, Hogwarts Legacy emphasizes the use of magic as the only power accessible to players to take on formidable enemies with a variety of physical and magical means of attack, including the likes of trolls that should theoretically squish any student they land on.
Hogwarts Legacy features a total of 27 spells accessible to players, with some permanently locked to a hotkey, such as Revelio, while others are specific to certain occurrences, such as Alohomora or Petrificus Totalus. The spells are well-thought-out, each serving a unique purpose in combat, the Room of Requirement, interacting with the world, or a combination of the three. The assortment of spells is not too outlandish, ensuring that players have a good range of options. It was also nice to see that the game retained Flippendo, a spell introduced in the original PC and console releases of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Players can have up to sixteen castable spells on their toolbar at any time, and once they have unlocked them all, only minor changes are typically needed. This allows players to get comfortable with their hot bar setups and ensures that combat flows smoothly without too much umming and aahing.
At the lowest difficulty settings, combat can be a snooze-fest. However, on the standard or highest level difficulty settings, they can offer a satisfying challenge. Balancing your use of spells against different barriers and environmental hazards is enjoyable, particularly when dodging or shielding yourself from various spells fired at you, which in late-game is where much challenge comes from. While you don’t have to worry about dark wizards casting Avada Kedavra and instantly defeating you at every turn, the game makes it clear that your opponents intend to take you out, just as you intend to take them out. Of course, you can go down the dark path and learn those unforgivable curses yourself, although outside of a few scattered remarks from NPCs, it doesn’t lead to you being considered a dark wizard yourself – a missed opportunity if you ask me.
Hogwarts Legacy follows a linear quest structure for both the main story and side missions, with few options to deviate from the established path. This includes a notable early quest where you choose to invite a specific companion along with you, for that choice to never be offered again. The only other time you receive deviating paths is at the very end of the game, which decides the fate of a couple of characters in one instance, and which ending you receive in another. Another missed opportunity of many, that at least as an end-user, seems like less linear missions were explored but not implemented in the final release. On the note of missions as well, much is missable and you can easily find yourself backtracking, as many classes and spells are also locked behind optional quests. Of course, if you were a completionist like me, this was nary a problem.
Outside of exploring the wider Hogwarts region, finding collectables and completing requests, players also gain access early on to the Room of Requirement. It turns out that whilst remaining a mystery to Dumbledore, deputy headmistress Matilda Weasley uses the room to assist the player character in improving their skills as a late-comer to Hogwarts… ie. give you a space to customise, raise beasts and easily craft potions and the like. It is a fun enough system if you are into the design side of things, with multiple areas to unlock as you continue through its associated questline, but also mostly optional if it isn’t your jam, and you can immediately use it as an easily accessible place to craft Wiggenweld Potion.
Player progression is primarily done through a levelling system, which incrementally increases from 1 to 40 – with the final cutscene requiring a level of 36 at least. While not necessarily providing stat boons, certain levels are required for specific quests, and do unlock talent points which give you quite a bit of flexibility in the perks you receive – although I see little reason not to focus on Spells, Core Magic and Sneaking. Instead, the offensive and defensive stat is raised through unlocking equipment with different boons, that can also be customised via the loom in the Room of Requirement. For those who are worried about mismatched attire, don’t fret, as a ‘glamour’ system is available for you to choose the design of any outfit, including a handle for your wand. In terms of a role-playing experience, this is a wise decision of the developers. Even without the level limits on quests, I never had difficulty meeting the required level, although given the incremental climbs in challenge, probably is an effective means of telling players to ‘slow down’.
While I note that a patch has recently gone live on the PlayStation 5 version of Hogwarts Legacy which would hopefully fix isolated incidents, my playtime was not bug-free. I saw more than one Hogwarts Student in areas that only my player should have been able to access, while area lighting and missions not prompting were also occasional occurrences. Furthermore, some things made no sense in the game. For example, there are two scenes when you have to sneak around at night to avoid the gazes of prefects and teachers. Fair enough. But any other time in the game you can wander around these areas at any time without issue. I can appreciate that having prefects roam the halls at points during the games day-night cycle would have been annoying, but for isolated areas such as the teachers’ quarters, it would have made sense.
Final Words on Hogwarts Legacy
Is Hogwarts Legacy that AAA Wizarding World game that we have been hoping to see for decades now? While there are still areas that Avalanche Software could build upon to make it a definitive experience – such as more exploration opportunities in the vast open world, the inclusion of Quidditch, and just more engagement with the Hogwarts student body in general – I would most certainly say yes. While on paper its main story sounds simple and lacklustre, through the sheer range of world-building events, a multitude of side quests, character arcs and incidental stories, it is an exciting world to enjoy that kept me coming back for hours on end throughout my 40-hours playthrough. The spell-casting mechanics are also well executed, making for some fun duels and battles requiring split-second decisions. I can only hope that this is just the beginning of the Hogwarts Legacy experience, and is not just a deliver-and-move-on game for the studio and publisher. For now though, my childhood dreams have been finally answered.
Hogwarts Legacy is now available on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC. PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch versions are still in development, to be released over the coming months.
